


where the heart is (or some other stupid romantic line)

by funnefatale



Category: MIB: International, Men in Black (Movies)
Genre: Canon Compliant, F/M, Falling In Love, Friendship/Love
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-06-25
Updated: 2019-06-25
Packaged: 2020-05-19 17:01:20
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,988
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19361026
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/funnefatale/pseuds/funnefatale
Summary: Working with H feels like the closest thing she’s had to home in a very long time.





	where the heart is (or some other stupid romantic line)

**Author's Note:**

  * Inspired by [Like all the stars in the sky](https://archiveofourown.org/works/19260856) by [Sanemsie](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Sanemsie/pseuds/Sanemsie). 



> Tagging Sanemsie's fic because they had a similar idea and beat me to it.
> 
> One day Hemsworth and Tessa will do a movie together where their kiss scene isn't cut and on that day we will no longer need fanfiction because nothing will ever top reality. But until then my bi ass needs closure.

She’s selfish. Always has been.

Molly was selfish when she was ten and insisted her parents send her to space camp even though they could barely afford it. She was selfish when she was more concerned with helping the fugitive Tarantian in her room than she was with her parents. She was selfish when she almost missed her parents’ funeral because she was halfway across the city chasing a lead on an alien sighting.

It could have been her downfall - _should_ have been her downfall. But it wasn't. At least not yet.

M’s selfish too, because the very same night O gives her everything she’s ever wanted, it’s still not enough. It will be. Just not yet. Because right now she’s too selfish to let that awkward half-goodbye in front of a dozen senior agents be the last time she sees H.

 

 

When the car lands, he lingers in his seat and she lingers in silence, neither of them quite ready to let go just yet. She half expects Pawny to snark at H through the dashboard compartment but either he's chosen to remain silent or (more likely) fallen asleep. She waits a beat and then another before she finally lets go of her grip on the steering wheel and turns to face him.

He smiles at her, softly, not even the slightest bit fazed that she caught him staring. She wants to call him out on it, tease him one last time, but then he gets this _look_ and her breath catches. It only makes his smile softer.

 _I hope you find it one day,_ he says.

 _Find what?_ she asks, half bemused and half amused.

He doesn't answer.

Instead he leans forward and closes the distance between them. Before she even has the chance to wonder if he's going to kiss her, his lips brush against her cheek so gently that she almost questions whether or not it happened.

"Goodbye, Molly."

He's gone before she can say anything.

 

 

She hits the ground running in New York. Throws herself into what she's searched for her entire life. Because this is what she wants - it's all she's ever wanted. And she has it and she's happy.

And if she feels a little underwhelmed sometimes, well, it's only because nothing tops saving the world.

It has nothing to do with missing H.

 

 

She gets assigned a new partner.

H, ironically enough.

If the message hadn't come directly from O herself, M would have thought it was a joke because there's _no way_ that could happen. Statistically, the odds of it happening are so low that it’s basically impossible. But not actually impossible, which means it's actually _absolutely way_ happening:

M has a new partner and it's H.

Just not the H she's used to.

She thinks it's meant to be a reminder of what O told her about the prices you pay.

That thing O told her right before _she_ told O that she couldn’t go back to New York with her because had a few things to wrap up in London. Right before she sat in a car for several hours, waiting around, just so she could ride from Paris to London with H.

The old H.

Not this new one.

H (this New York H, this new H, this _H 2.0_ ) is a bit younger than her but has a few years more experience under his belt. He's sharp, but very by the book. He listens to the rules, takes orders well, and expects her to do the same. He's nothing like H (the Original H). But he is kind and patient. He genuinely wants to help her, she can tell. No ulterior motive. He just wants the best for the organization, which includes helping her become the best agent she can be.

They should work well together.

They _do_ work well together.

It's just… different.

Different from the way things were before. Different from the way she got her initial training. Different from everything she really knows about being an agent. And different doesn't have to mean bad.

It's just, well, different.

Obviously.

She'll adjust, she tells herself. After all, it shouldn't be hard considering how little time she spent in London and how little time she spent with the other H. It doesn’t matter that it was world-saving, life-changing, reality-shaping time, because it was for such a small period that it’ll just become a blip on her resume. So she can let it go and get over it. Really.

 

 

Even though they're in the same top secret institution, she knows there's virtually no chance she'll see him again. Especially now that she's officially been placed as an agent in New York. A field agent, specifically. Which is very different from his status as (probationary) Head of the London Branch. She doubts he'll even be on the field much now, so there's no reason for their paths to cross anymore.

She won't let herself even hope otherwise. Not when everything tells her otherwise.

Except she can't shake this feeling in her gut that this isn't the end just yet. It doesn't make sense, she knows because all of the evidence tells her otherwise. But a part of her just _knows_ that she'll see him again.

She has to.

 

 

(Okay, maybe she misses him a little bit.)

 

 

A device drops on her desk and her head jerks up to see H - Real H. Original Flavor H. Her H - grinning down at her.

 _A dossier_ , he explains cheekily, skipping the part where he explains what the hell he’s doing in New York. _Stole it off someone's desk_ , he adds. They won't miss it. Or maybe they will. It doesn't really matter. What does matter is that Jimmy is on his way back to see the kids. Just can't seem to stay away, it seems.

The whole time he talks he has that stupid, perfect, goofy smile on his face. The real one - the full, brilliant bright one that could probably be used as a backup generator if the entire city were to suddenly go dark - not the obviously fake one he uses when he's schmoozing up to someone. There's a difference.

_Coming?_

M looks at him, all grinning and hopeful, then to H 2.0 who is busy filling out his share of their paperwork across the room. She really shouldn't, she knows.

She grins back at him, grabs her jacket.

_I’m driving._

 

 

What he says: He’s only in town for the day. Just popped in to have one of those boring bureaucratic meetings with O and a few other top agents. It only lasted a couple of hours, but he needs to get out and stretch his legs a bit. Have some fun before the day is done.

What he doesn’t say: Why he needs to do that here instead of just taking the hour train ride back to London.

 

 

Falling back into step with H is easy.

It makes sense, of course. They know each other's movements, their ticks, their tells. She doesn’t have a ton of experience with it, but she figures that's what happens when you save the world with someone: you get to know them. You know you can depend on them. You find comfort in their presence. In them.

Working with H ( _her H_ ) feels like the closest thing she’s had to home in a very long time.

 

 

(Except her home is in New York and his is in London and that hasn't changed.)

 

 

"Did you ever find it?" he asks.

She frowns. "Find what?"

"Still a no then," he says as if that's supposed to mean something.

 

 

While she's getting ready for bed that night, Pawny's tells her _Agent Jackass_ left him in New York specifically so that he'd have a reason to see her again. They all know Jackass can't survive without him, Pawny explains without being prompted, and Pawny can't very well save him all the way from New York. Ergo, she'll have to go back to London to take him back.

It's a basic Cinderella and glass slipper situation.

 _Did H tell you that?_ she asks as she wraps her hair for the night, trying her best to keep her voice level and cool.

He doesn't have to, Pawny says. It's pretty obvious every time he looks at her.

 

 

Here’s the thing about erasing your entire identity to join a top secret organization: you have no one to visit when you get a vacation.

Not that she really had anyone to visit after her parents died. Or any sort of paid vacation time. Regardless, the point still stands: she has no one to see. Which she knows was kind of her whole selling point to get into this situation in the first place, but knowing that beforehand and actually experiencing it aren’t exactly the same things.

So with no other real options, she goes to London.

After all, she needs to drop Pawny off.

 

 

She runs into him as he’s leaving his office.

Literally. Point blank crashes into him as he steps out of the door.

Fortunately, their reflexes are fast enough that they catch each other before either of them (okay, probably just her) falls. His eyes widen in recognition and her name escapes from his lips in one soft, slightly confused breath. The hands he has on her arms tighten ever so slightly as the rest of him relaxes. She squeezes her hold on his arms gently in return, and they stay there for a moment, balancing each other.

Except then Pawny complains about how he _actually_ went crashing to the ground and neither of them seem to care, and the moment falls apart.

They let go of their holds and M apologizes as she scoops Pawny up from the floor and returns him to her shoulders.

H smiles in a way that shows her that he really is happy to see her, but there’s something off in the way he says it. The life in his eyes is a little duller, the beat in his voice is a little slower, the tension in his shoulders a little tighter than before. He’s tired, she realizes, and maybe even more in need of a vacation than her.

Her lips press together as Pawny quips something she doesn’t actually catch. Judging by the way he doesn’t look away from her, his gaze holding onto her like she’s a lifeline, she doesn’t think H does either.

 _Come on_ , she says, turning away from the office she traveled halfway across the world to see. She needs a drink.  

H falls in step beside her without question.

 

 

Does she ever think about what their lives would have been like if they had never been recruited?

She considers telling him that of course she doesn’t, because unlike him she wasn’t recruited. She fought tooth and nail, going against every odd, ruining any relationship she ever had, to find this. For the better part of her life, this was all she has wanted. All she thought about.

So _no_ , she doesn’t have to think about it because she knows exactly what her life would have been like because she already lived it.

But she doesn’t say it.

 _Their_ life? she asks instead, keeping her voice as dry and neutral as she can. There would be no _them_ if it wasn’t for the Men in Black. If O hadn’t sent her to London, they would have never met.

H grins in response. Sure they would have, he insists.

_Some things are just inevitable._

He could have gone to the States for a job or she could have come to London for a holiday. They could have run into each other at a pub or a club or even through mutual friends. Hell, they could have been neighbors, he laughs. Molly would have hated Henry as a neighbor, he bets. But he reckons she would have warmed up to him eventually. They’d become friends.

She snorts. _Friends_? Molly and Henry? As if.

 _Henry_ and Molly, he corrects her.

Nope, she insists. _Molly and Henry_ has a much better ring to it.

M expects him to argue but he doesn’t. Instead his smile softens and there’s that _look_ again, the one he had on his face that night in London in the car.

“Yeah,” he says gently. “It does sound good when you say it like that.”

She doesn’t have a response.

 

 

 _The probation period is over_.

He’s stepping down as Head of the London Branch. He hasn’t officially told anyone yet, but he reckons Agent C can take over until they find a more permanent replacement.

H doesn’t say it, but she knows it isn’t because of his performance. She may still be a new agent, but she hears things. The London Branch, while a little unstable, has been performing better than it has in two years. Between High T’s secret agenda being removed and H’s recklessness being forced into retirement, it had to go up. Not to mention how long H had been unofficially training for this. It may have come sooner than expected, but him running the London Branch was always the plan.

_Why?_

Sometimes, he says slowly. Sometimes you just have to get something to realize that maybe you don't actually want it.

She nods slowly. She thinks she gets it.

Kind of.

Maybe.

Okay, not really.

He laughs. Something inside of her clicks into place and, briefly, she thinks that maybe she could have understood it if she had stayed in London.

 

 

Two weeks later, he shows up at her desk. In New York. As in not London. You know, the place he’s been stationed and was running until just now.

See that’s the thing, H explains as he grabs one of the files off her desk and haphazardly flips through it, probably not even reading a word. It turns out that demoting yourself from head of an organization back down to a regular field agent makes working with people a bit awkward. No one knows how to act around him anymore. It’s impossible for him to find a new partner.

Uh-huh, sure. Except she thought he _preferred_ to work alone.

Yes, well, things change.

He looks up at her when he says that. Meets her eyes and refuses to look away.

“So,” he says. “What do you say, M? Know anyone looking for a partner?”

The answer should be no - the answer _is_ no - because she has a partner. A partner that, despite calling him as 2.0 in her head, is not just a replacement for the H standing in front of her. He’s a partner who is good and smart and has taught her so much. Who has been with her for the better part of a year now. It isn’t right to toss that away for someone she’s only spent, what, a combined total of two weeks with.

Still.

“I might have an idea,” she says and he grins.

It isn’t right, but it’s what she wants and she’s too selfish to care.  

 

 

Working with H again is pretty much what she expected.

They’re good together, that’s undeniable. The number of cases she closes in a month rises by nearly a third; so does the importance of her cases. Because it’s one thing to assign grunt work to the newbie, but it’s an entirely different thing to assign it to the duo that saved the world from a mole within the organization.

They’re dynamite when they work together - strong and deadly with amazing results.

Also explosive.

That’s not always a good thing.

Because as well as they know each other, as well as they feed off of each other, they’re still so different, especially now when she’s used to working with someone else and he’s used to having final authority. And as different as their personalities and methods are, they're similar enough in their stubbornness to refuse to bow down.

That refusal nearly costs them some important cases on more than one occasion.

She thinks that it wouldn’t be unreasonable to separate them. But H’s authority still has some power, even here in New York. And maybe selfishness is another thing they have in common because it’s never even up for discussion.

M and H work together. The End.

It shouldn’t be though. Because it isn’t supposed to be about what they want - it’s what’s about what’s best for the organization. It’s why she left London in the first place after all. So maybe she needs to be the one to suggest it.

Except then his arm playfully bumps against hers as they walk away from what could have been - what _should_ have been - a disastrous scene and a jolt of something crawls up her arm. She’s grinning before he even has the chance to point out what a good team they are.

 _Yeah_ , they really are.

 

 

Sometimes the high-priority missions they get are actually just grunt work in disguise, like babysitting random high ranking aliens who treat Earth like some sort of resort to avoid their real problems. It shouldn’t be surprising - her first mission with H was supposed to be nothing more than taking Vungus to a club. Still, she thinks chaperoning the teenage princess of Jadoo on a date at a bookstore coffee shop might be a new level of high-priority low.

H must think so too, she assumes because he disappears from his post at a bookshelf to take a call, leaving her alone with two teenage Jadooians making heart eyes at each other while pretending to drink coffee. The princess giggles in a strangely high-pitched way that M’s pretty sure is a part of some mating ritual and she swears to god if she has to stop them from dry humping on the table by herself, she will kill H.

_Hello._

She snaps her head up to see H standing in front of her, holding a paper cup of coffee (plain black, she knows, because you don’t get to looking the way H does by adding cream and sugar to your coffee). The amusement in his eyes is apparent, even if they’re hidden behind a pair of thick frames that would probably look hideous on anyone that wasn’t him.

 _Hi_ , she responds slowly, not masking her confusion.

Her voice bounces off his communicator's mic and echoes in her ear, reminding her that this isn't part of the plan they agreed on. If it wasn’t for the mischievous grin on his lips, she might have thought something was wrong. Well, the grin and H’s predisposition to throwing the plan to the wind if it means he can have a bit of fun.

She glances from him to the Jadooians, who are too wrapped up in each other to even notice that their babysitters aren’t fully focused on them. H raises his brows playfully before he reaches up and turns his communicator off, signaling to her that he doesn’t plan on returning to his post any time soon. After a beat, she lifts her hand to her ear and does the same. His grin grows.

Is that seat taken, he asks.

Oh, the seat covered in her papers that seems otherwise occupied?

Yes, that one.

She smiles and nods. It is, but she's willing to make an exception.

He laughs in a way that’s contagious and then says to at least let him buy her a cup of coffee to make up for it, fully ignoring the mostly full cup already on the table.

She nods, _okay_ , sure, she'd like that.

 

 

"I'm Henry, by the way," he says.

"Molly," she says.

He grins brightly. "Nice to meet you."

 

 

It’s a date.

Their cover, that is.

H doesn’t say it, but Henry makes it obvious by the way he sits next to her, leaning as close to her touch as possible, brushing his knee against hers. By the way he feigns interest in her introductory French books, asking her to repeat the accented words to her as if he isn’t already fluent, and commenting on how talented her tongue must be. And M thinks they’re far past the professional boundaries, but Molly doesn’t really care.

Oh, she responds, Henry has no idea how talented her tongue really is.

She takes a sip of her iced coffee, lips wrapping around her straw, as she says it. She smirks when his throat quivers slightly, because inappropriate jokes have always been his forte, never hers.

He doesn’t get a chance to respond though, because the alarm on her phone buzzes, followed shortly by his, signaling the end of the Jadooians’ date. The end of their mission-slash-date, which means the end to whatever this game is they’re playing.

They stand and she begins to gather her books, mumbling something about needing to go so it doesn’t seem too strange to anyone who may be watching them. But his hand touches her shoulder gently and she glances up to see him gazing at her softly. There’s something there and before she has the chance to even consider if she’s ready to acknowledge it, he leans down and kisses her on the cheek.

A piece of paper slips into her hand and the playful smirk is back by the time his eyes lift to meet hers.

 _Goodbye, Molly_.

He walks away before she can say anything.

 

 

His phone number - his actual number, she knows because she already has it memorized - is scribbled inside the paper next to a single word:

_H._

 

 

He’s uncharacteristically silent on the ride back, but so is she. The weight of the mission hovers, hanging somewhere between the gentle rumble of the car and Pawny’s snoring. She pulls the car to a stop but neither of them move. It occurs to her that this feels very similar to that night in London. It shouldn’t, but it also shouldn’t feel like anything so she’s screwed anyways.

She’s been screwed, she thinks, ever since that first morning when he walked in, crossing her path only because he was already a half hour late to his meeting.

_Listen -_

_We should -_

Their words stumble over each other and she laughs at the timing of it. But he doesn’t laugh, doesn’t smile either. He doesn’t even look at her, not even when she rests a hand on his arm. He softens a little under her touch, but doesn’t move.

_H…_

He got a call, he says. From London.

Oh.

 

 

He’s going back. For real this time.

She doesn’t need any sort of explanation and he doesn’t insult her by giving one. They both know she understands what it means: It’s time for him to take his place as Head of the London Branch. Because, at the end of the day, it doesn’t matter what he wants. The only thing that matters is what needs to be done for the good of the Men in Black.

It was always meant to be this way. She thinks they both knew that, but were too stubborn, too selfish, to ever actually acknowledge that they’ve just been running on borrowed time.

H belongs in London. And she belongs in New York.

That’s the job they signed up for.

The one she gave up everything to have.

 

 

Did she ever find it?

(Find what?

 _Love_.)

She looks down at her hand, the one still rested on his arm, and doesn’t respond. Which is all the answer he needs, because his other hand covers hers and he squeezes it gently. She doesn’t have to glance up to know he’s finally looking at her, probably with that stupid soft smile that always makes her momentarily forget how to function.

 _Finally_ , he whispers.

 

 

She kisses him, gently, not trusting either of them with anything more.

They don’t get to be selfish anymore.

 

 

"I found it too, you know," he says.

"I know," she says.

They leave it at that.


End file.
